Circumcision as told by Penn and Teller
Warning! Don’t watch this video at work. Or near your chil’ens. Or if you get queasy at the thought of gratuitous phallic imagery, nudity, or “colorful” (i.e. “sounds like Cate”) language.
That disclaimer aside, I’ve come to understand what a heady topic circumcision can be! (No, I couldn’t resist the pun! And yes, I have been reading too much Cake Wrecks.)
After I wrote my initial blog exploring reasons to leave boys intact, there was a lot of “discussion” on the topic. People sure are passionate about foreskins!
1 million times a year, 3,000 times a day, every 26 seconds, an American boy has the tip of his penis cut off.
Sometimes, it’s better to just let the professionals do the talking. No, I don’t mean all of those doctors I consulted before I decided to leave my sons intact.
I’m talking, of course, about Penn and Teller, who explored circumcision on one of their “BS!” series episodes.
How about finishing up this serious topic with some humor?
- » See also: Fleurville Bags: Eco-friendly, Family-friendly…and Sexy?!
- » Get Eco Child’s Play by RSS or sign up by email.
Watch the video, if you don’t mind a bit of nudity, clips of performed circumcisions, a pic of FGM (female genital mutilation), penis jokes, info on foreskin “recycling”, a Ron Jeremy cameo, and dose of cuss words.
Penn & Teller take the time to debunk the myths associated with this practice. I value this video because of that. I didn’t base any of my arguments on this video, but I appreciate having found a good chuckle. Before you watch, however, don’t say I haven’t warned you!
But…blasted! The internet embedding trolls have foiled me again. Go to Google Video to check it out:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2577091532653693892&hl=en
If you’d like to read my full blog review on the video, check it out at Nature’s Child.
Chris said on February 27th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
“Edgar Schoen is one of the two major public pushers of circumcision. His website is http://www.medicirc.org. The other pusher is Brian Morris, not a doctor but a biologist, his website is http://www.circinfo.net. Both websites are full of outdated data and full on lies.”
-I’m not a person to see things as black or white the pro-circ radicals as bad as the anti-circ radicals, and Edgar Schoen certainly is not a person I would ever trust to perform a circumcision.
TurboFool said on February 27th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
“I do wish to clear up a misconception on your part, though: Circumcision is not “easily reversible” by any remote stretch of the imagination, and I don’t recall the P&T episode suggesting it was.”
-To someone like me who is not knowledgeable about the process of the foreskin restoration, P&T sure made it seem easy in that video by stating if you tug on the circumcised penis in a strategic way you will end up with a desired result that acts like an uncircumcised penis would. Like wise to someone who doesn’t know about the Jewish religion they would have thought that Rabbi was of the Jewish faith instead of being of Jewish decent but of the Christian faith. I also greatly appreciate your details on foreskin restoration as this is quite fascinating to me in how far such things have progressed and will continue to until a full restoration can be made.
“I will comment about your comparison between the horror of watching a circumcision, and the horror of watching an abortion. Ignoring any moral implications of either action (this is surely not the place for THAT argument), when comparing the visual observation (”…ever seen…”) of both acts, I personally don’t think a consenting woman undergoing a procedure not visibly too dissimilar from a typical gynecological procedure compares to the sight of a screaming newborn being forcibly strapped to a table, having a clamp applied to its genitalia, and a scalpel used to CUT 50% of the surface area of its penis away before it ever has the chance to use it. Again, this is ignoring any moral outrage you may be justified in feeling about either action.”
I agree with the fact “this is surely not the place for THAT argument,” however with the sheer ignorance of the woman making such a statement of that being the most horrific thing she has ever seen, I had to being up that subject. I also agree that it doesn’t compare to watching an infant circumcision, because one is not watching the abortion process as it is happening, however it has very real traumatic effects on a majority of woman who go through abortions which require years of counseling to deal with. On top of that it is much worse seeing, hearing and dealing with an infant who has jaundice or colic cry, or seeing any other medical procedure done on a infant or toddler which also requires to have them be strapped down in much the same way, if not more restrained.
Although I do still disagree with some points I really appreciate reading your knowledgeable input. I greatly admire the fact that you have every right to go off on a angry rant, but rather you have chosen to write with researched facts. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on the subject.
Cate Nelson said on February 28th, 2009 at 9:50 am
“Brettney,
If you’ve read any of my other blogs, you would see that we don’t watch television. I haven’t seen any of the others in the “BS!” series. I simply thought we could end discussion of this topic on a lighter note. Hmmm…perhaps it’s only funny (and horrifyinh) to those who already believe in leaving babies intact?”
That is a tough transition since, to so many, this is not a light subject but I did acknowledge that by first stating “Penn and Teller are hilarious,…”
“And as I said in the comment section of my first blog on this subject, overwhelmingly, the consensus was: “It’s what you prefer.” They told us that medically, there was no reason to circumcise. Because my dh wanted his son circumcised, he was certainly looking for the doctors to back him up.
I simply couldn’t do “what I preferred” when it came to a newborn’s body. He can do it when he is an adult, if he so chooses.”
I appreciate reading that statement, as it holds much more reason then the whole 11 reasons not to circ blog post. This in part because the 5 reasons, the ones that were not just opinion, go back and forth based on the numerous studies out there.
“I also agree that it doesn’t compare to watching an infant circumcision, because one is not watching the abortion process as it is happening, however it has very real traumatic effects on a majority of woman who go through abortions which require years of counseling to deal with.”
I really, really didn’t want to get into this, but I couldn’t let that one go. You seem to place a lot of weight on “studies that go back and forth.” Well, to be fair here, the research done on this has found that that argument has no roots in reality OR real studies, but comes entirely from pro-life groups. Research has found that the majority of women who have abortions need no counseling and have no notable psychological problems after the fact. Again, regardless of your personal opinions on the subject, I’m sure you can agree that presenting accurate information trumps using outright propaganda to “prove” a point. I’ve tried hard to stick to legitimate facts and throw out the aspects of my argument that seem difficult to back up. Please consider doing the same.
“I appreciate reading that statement, as it holds much more reason then the whole 11 reasons not to circ blog post. This in part because the 5 reasons, the ones that were not just opinion, go back and forth based on the numerous studies out there.”
Looking at the five that aren’t opinion:
Since we can’t really prove either way whether strapping a baby down and cutting off a part of his penis causes him long-term trauma, wouldn’t you agree logic dictates it’s safer to NOT do it if there’s not some overwhelming reason why his life or well-being are directly threatened by not doing it?
Girls get far more UTIs, yet a simple treatment with antibiotics is considered perfectly reasonable for them. Do we consider boys so fragile that irreversible SURGERY is preferable to a Z-Pak every few years in the more extreme cases of kids whose parents neglect basic hygiene for them?
The STD issue’s tricky, as the studies HAVE been poorly conducted, but may have a kernel of truth, as it’s likely that as viruses evolved, they latched on to any vector they could find, which might include the specific cells that are partially lost during circumcision. But the USA proves the argument irrelevant. We’re the single most circumcising high-level country in the world, and have the worst STD rates among them. This is due most likely to our abhorrent sexual education, but proves that circumcision can’t trump poor education in protecting us. Meanwhile the countries in the world with the best education also happen to have the lowest rates of circumcision AND the lowest rates of STDs. Clearly education is more beneficial than circumcision.
Phimosis really isn’t much of an issue for studies. The reality is that you can ask any doctor whose knee-jerk reaction isn’t “circumcise” every time he hears “penis” and “problem” in the same sentence, and you’ll find there are plenty of reasonable options employed throughout the world that resolve the relatively rare problem easily without the need for surgery. But since we’re used to circumcising as a norm anyway, we don’t value the foreskin enough to try to preserve it.
Penile cancer is kind of a joke of a reason for circumcision. First off, it’s rare. But for the poor people who do get it, there’s kind of an important distinction: the vast majority of them develop it in their 70s. We’re performing surgery on our infants to prevent a condition they won’t get until they’re elderly, and well past the point where they had the ability to make their own choice on the matter? You see any logic to this? Besides that, if you compare the mortality rate between penile cancer to that of infant circumcision, you’ll be surprised to find they’re quite similar. So when given the choice to perform a procedure that is almost just as likely to kill my newborn as it is to prevent him from dying in his 70s, I don’t think I’m crazy for favoring the odds that he reach his average lifespan.
If you examine each of those, at the absolute worst they seem to be a wash when it comes to research. Either the research is too shoddy on one or both sides to draw a good conclusion, or outside factors counter any benefits the research finds. So if the research is a wash, then that really does seem to lead to “it’s what you prefer” which was the clear point made in that original blog. I prefer not to permanently alter my son’s body without his consent. I’m just still not sure why there are people who find it perfectly reasonable to infringe upon his rights that way.